‘It is profoundly unjust that this couple are regaining the freedoms they enjoyed when they were single, while for their wedding guests the Saturday afternoon they spent at the ceremony and reception is lost forever.’

Jack and Winnie Sandford got married in 1933 and have been together 77 years, longer than anyone else on earth, but according to 98-year-old Jack it is a living hell. ‘Every morning I wake up and wish I was dead. Or better still she was.’